Hard Facts:Keywords are what SEO’s struggle to rank for, because of their ineffective or outdated strategies of keyword targeting. I don’t mean to say that you are wrong, neither am I saying that all search marketers find it difficult to get their sites/posts ranked on Google. There are many who do their job exceptionally well, using the right strategies and right approach.

Ok! Now what? What’s the Big Deal?

It seems pretty easy understanding both the terms. But my point of discussion is not this.

The Real Point of discussion is to unveil the difference between keywords and search queries which is still not clear to many of so-called “SEO Experts”.

Dealing the Scary Misconception

Yes! It is indeed very scary if you are dealing with such a confusion.

Moreover, if you are running a Pay Per Click campaign with that misconception in the head, you might not be able to get the desired results and may end up blowing your advertising budget.

Here is why:

A keyword is conceptually a broader term as it can be viewed in two forms from a search marketer’s perspective:

Keyword targeting for organic search visibility.

Bidding on keywords in Pay Per Click(PPC) Campaigns.

Keyword targeting can make or even badly break your paid marketing campaigns depending upon how you map what your users search for (i.e Queries), to what you want to target (i.e keywords).

If you go with choosing a highly competitive single word keyword, you may have to pay thousands of dollars to get listed on the top paid results on Google.

Keyword Targeting For Organic Search

Before writing your SEO optimized content for the topic of your choice, every blogger or marketer must do some keyword research so as to get sufficient organic traffic for those search terms.

This is probably because targeting highly competitive one-word or two-word keywords might not get you to rank on the very 1st page on Google easily, unless and until you have the most relevant and valuable content according to Google Ranking Algorithm.

Also, there are high risks of your rankings to show a dip to lower positions if your content is not optimized since the competition is fierce for single word keywords.

Pro Tip: Targeting Long Tail keywords can get you better rankings in organic search.

For instance if you want to get some keyword ideas for the keyword “men’s trousers” , then assuming that you have selected to show broad match keywords in Google keyword planner, the terms “mens trousers online” , “trousers for men” ,etc. will be the Search Queries .

Conclusion

The Difference between a Search Query and a Keyword is very tenuous and subtle.

But it is very important for every marketer to understand this basic difference between both; so that you are clear with the elementary school SEO Basics. I am not trying to insult anyone, but making a generous effort to help others who didn’t knew about it.

Did you know this little difference before? Let me know your thought on this in the comments below.